


Isn't it lovely (all alone) ?

by creativefuckerzspring



Series: Mi Casa [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes-centric, Canon Compliant, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Everyone Is Alive, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Not Endgame Stucky friendly, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, Possibly Unrequited Love, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Endgame, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, apparently that's a tag in itself, i guess, only Steve Rogers canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-03-09 19:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18923653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creativefuckerzspring/pseuds/creativefuckerzspring
Summary: Steve takes the stones to back in time but he also takes himself back to Peggy.Away from Bucky.Bucky had never been worth it.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Title of the fic taken from 'Lovely' by Billie Eilish. 
> 
> Someone said this dance cover by NCT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ovHSQwp1n0 depicted depression well and hence.
> 
>  
> 
> Russian used here is taken from either Marvel or is Google Translated.
> 
>  
> 
> Edit: Just a fair warning to anyone who is looking for Steve-friendly fic cuz while I don't think of this as a non-Steve friendly fic but that in essence, it is a non-Russo's version of Stucky in Endgame friendly. In case that is something, you're not looking to read, feel free to give it a miss. (Although, I rather you give it a try?)

_Heart made of glass, my mind of stone_  
_Tear me to pieces, skin to bone_  
_Hello, welcome home_

\- **Lovely | Billie Eilish, Khalid**

 

 

Even though there are exactly ninety-eight people in attendance, the open field is in a hush. Bucky could hear the leaves rustling and a kid at the front seat sniffling even though he is several yards away, hidden from sight. The tall trees do the job for him and even if they didn’t, nobody would be paying attention. Everyone’s eyes are set on Samuel Thomas Wilson who is climbing the podium. They called out Captain America’s best friend. 

 

The letter in his metal fist crumples.

 

In the wind, the blades of the grass scratch against his bare feet. 

 

Samuel’s eyes scan the crowd and Bucky steps farther away.

 

He hasn’t been the best friend of Captain America in a long time.

 

Bucky turns his back to the gathering and step by step takes himself away from there. 

 

He needs to go away. Get away.

 

He shouldn’t even be here.

 

His footfalls are faster.

 

He is pulling off the tie he had put on to blend in and throwing it away when he first feels it. Somebody is behind him. He swerves around.

 

It is the Stark son.

 

“Leaving already?”

Bucky halts. He hadn’t expected any question. He hadn’t expected Howard’s son to talk to him at all. Perplexed, his legs draw to a halt. The shorter man, perhaps, understood that. He continues to Bucky’s utter confusion, “You should have been the one up there. No offence to the Birdman.” He crosses his arms across his chest. “So, again, why are you here?” He is wearing sunglasses but Bucky can still detect the red-rimmed eyes behind the tinted glasses.

“Steve thought high of you. Your friendship mattered a lot to him.”

Stark is the one to look surprised now that he even drops his stance. “You-”

“He regretted his actions. Regretted hurting you- your friendship.” Bucky regrets it. “I wouldn’t have let him had I known what he was losing. Not come in between.” Bucky knows what it feels like to be chosen over. He turns away from him. “And, thank you,” he says. He may never get another chance. “You shouldn’t have.” He misses Tony’s frowning face.

He has taken twelve steps from where he had stopped when Stark says loudly, “Is that what you did?” Bucky doesn’t stop. Three more steps. “Is that what you did now? Not come in between? Cap and his _Back to the Future_ ?” His voice turns mocking, challenging. Bucky turns partially to look at the younger man. “So what, you _let_ him choose Aunt Peggy over you, huh?”

Bucky looks down at his foot where it crushes the grass underneath it. The grass cushions his feet and his feet are hurting them. “Steve had always been hers.” 

 

Even though he was my first.

 

 

Stark gapes at him. Bucky doesn’t know what he told, what Stark understood but it feels enough that the odd sensation of heartbreak blooms in his chest again.

 

His steps get rapid and he breaks into a run. He is running through the woods, his breath slightly uneven. He needs to get away.

His doctor had told him to not be in close quarters with anything that raised bad memories or made him unstable unless he was really sure he could handle it.

He runs fast, climbing and vaulting over walls. He needs to _get away_ .

Who thought it was a good idea to invite him to Steve’s funeral?

He is this close to the perimeter. His breath and heartbeat erratic, struggling to keep his mind from dissociating, he leaps over the short fence and electric wiring. He sails over easily without a single thought. He lands on the balls of his feet.

 

Why did he think it was a good idea to come?

 

An electric shock zaps through his ankle. He stumbles and slides on the mossy area and falls into the water before he can get a grip. 

 

The water is cold and it slaps against his body.

 

Bucky is trained. He is a highly trained assassin. It shouldn’t take anything at all to come back out.

 

The electric zap hits again and in water, it hits him stronger. Bucky was closer to the surface of the water but isn’t able to break through it. He isn’t able to breathe in. His own weight drags him under. As he struggles against the repetitive shocks, the surface keeps getting further away. He flails and flails till he isn’t surrounded by the river water anymore.

 

He is back in the tank at the Hydra facility again where he was being disciplined for disobedience. 

“Солдат?”

Bucky screamed.

 

“ваш ответ”

He couldn’t answer. He screamed. He couldn’t stop screaming. He can never escape. He can never escape. Why does he keep fighting? Why does he keep fighting? Why doesn’t he stop? 

“Почему мы вас убираем?” Why are we cleaning you? “ты хочешь быть ржавым?” Do you want to be rusted?

No. He flailed more and the electric shocks hurt more. His body shook in fear and pain.

Fear and pain. That’s what ржавым meant.

 

“ты хочешь быть ржавым, Солдат?”

*

 

No.

 

Bucky screamed.

And, suddenly, just like that he was out of the tank, away from the facility. The shocks had stopped. He found himself being dragged away and away towards the light. Whoever is dragging him isn’t hurting him. The grip on his arm is not hurting at all. It is not his Handler.

 

If only it could be Steve… 

 

But Steve had already crossed his end of the line.

 

And, it hadn't been with Bucky.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will foolproof it later.

_And all I gave you is gone_  
_Tumbled like it was stone_  
_Thought we built a dynasty that heaven couldn't shake_

**\- Dynasty | MIIA**

 

 

 

Солдат?

 

It didn’t feel cold. It didn’t feel hot either. It wasn’t being hurt.

He hadn’t been called Солдат in a while.

 

“White Wolf?”

 

Bucky was being shaken. He leaped onto his feet and crouched, snarling.

“Calm down. It is just... me.”

The person standing was of a foreign attire, soldier but with a regal bearing. King T’Challa.

He quickly stood in attention. “Your Highness.”

“We need to -” He was interrupted by the glow on his wrist and a hologram projection appeared from the kimoyo bead. “Okoye!” The Royal Guard looked shocked and then the feed was cut off. It was immediately followed by a siren. King T’Challa looked back at him. “Something isn’t right. Can you hear any of them?”

Bucky cocked his head to the left. “Who?”

“Let’s get back to the palace. Something is amiss.” He was twisting the beads and his eyes widened as he stared at the new hologram he was scanning through. “It says it is 2023?”, he says flabbergasted.

 

“2023, Your Highness?”

“No need to be alarmed. We have to tread carefully here.” Bucky was quick to change his stance. He was ready to protect the man who had given him the second chance.

There was a rustling behind them and they turned around hands positioned in defense.

“Your Highness!” A man appeared from behind the trees, hands raised in surrender. “I’m Sam, remember? Sam Wilson. Hey, Bucky.”

“Who are you?” Bucky wrinkled his nose in confusion. Only one person called him by that name.

 

Steve.

 

Where was he?

 

“Ouch, thanks. Where’s everybody?”

“Don’t know, Mr. Wilson. We are heading back to the palace. Let us go back together.” Just then the siren stopped and a weird sound followed that. The king frowned. “That is the perimeter barrier going down.”

“Did we lose?”

“Brother!” “My King!” New voices approached them, calling the King. Bucky looked around, trying to rack his brain. He remembered seeing Steve. Where was he? He couldn’t see.

Why?

 

Why?

2023.It was 2018 when he last saw Steve. How did it become 2023? Had he been put back under cryo?

 

“Where is Steve?”, he asked the man who was not hiding that he was watching him.

“Don’t know, buddy. That’s what we are going to figure out. We will find him.”

Steve wasn’t here?

“Hey, you okay?” He took a step closer. Bucky took one away.

“Fine,” he spit out. Where was Steve? Had they been separated again?

Had _Steve_ been taken this time? He couldn’t let any harm come to that man. He couldn’t let it happen. He couldn’t let it happen. Before he could sprint for recon, gold lights sparkle in front of him and it was like a hole in air and people were stepping out of it, led by a Magician and the young Spider boy who had blocked his punch in an airport.

“Hi”, the Spider boy said cheerfully. He looked excited and his breath rushed out when he said, “I’m Spiderman, Mr Sargent Barnes- Mr Soldier. Ehehehe. You have a cool arm.” His eyes were wide and happy to see the vibranium piece attached as his arm. “Future is great, huh?”

Future.

Bucky could recall someone being that excited to see anything about science and technology. That had been him, right? He used to be excited for things like that.

 

Even the last night before everything fell part was when he had dragged Steve along with him to an Expo.

The kid in front of him frowned, mumbled a ‘sorry’ and moved away. The hole in the air shut eventually and suddenly, there were so many people- King’s family, his personal guard, all these strangers. Steve’s new friend. That’s who Sam Wilson was, right?

He focused on the group in front of him. The Magician was talking rapidly and something about ‘very less time’, ‘need more people’. Wilson turned towards him and whispered, “We are getting Steve. He is fine.”

Bucky felt grateful and felt awful. Steve was elsewhere. It had been five years and he didn’t know what had happened. He had vowed to protect Steve and here he had ‘died’ again, leaving him behind. 

 

It was broad daylight where they had been standing but when the Magician ripped several portals open, they opened to darkness. To desolation.

 

It looked like the landscape of the Asset’s nightmare.

 

Had he been too late to protect Steve for one last time?

 

Steve’s anguished face as he had called out for him floated in his mind and Bucky took a deep breath. He marched through the portal.

 

One last time for Bucky Barnes, the loyal sidekick to Captain America.

He tried not to hear Wilson talking into the Comms. Talking to _Steve_

 

 

*

 

 

Turned out that half the population had been annihilated with Thanos’s snap. World had called it Decimation. The other half had survived. They had continued their lives with the horror permanently etched into their lives. Steve had been part of that half. Bucky, of former. Any day, he’d rather die instead of Steve even though he never fully understood why. It wasn’t just to escape the horrors of his own mind but also to protect Steve.

 

There was a _need_ to protect Steve.

He couldn’t comprehend at all. His memories were neither here nor there. They were fleeting and never stuck to him fully. The doctors in Wakanda had tried a lot.They had helped with what they could but Bucky had been a century worth of screwed up. The doctors couldn’t hope to unwrite that so quickly. But they tried. They were patient with him, welcoming him when not even the country he had died for would.

 

Although, currently, he was in said country; standing in the Avengers Facility. Howard Stark’s property.

 

Bucky sighed. News of Restoration had spread worldwide and everyone was celebrating with joy. Friends, family, lovers, everyone had come back. He had come back too. To who?

 

To whom had Bucky returned to because Steve didn’t seem satisfied to see him. When the battle had ended, Steve had been on his knees. Bucky had rushed to him but slowed down as one after the other reached Steve before and hugged him and surrounded him. Steve had that slight smile that made Bucky feel funny. He had grinned, an odd thing for him. They were finally together, could be together.

 

Then Steve had looked up and looked into Bucky’s eyes and there wasn’t that recognition.

 

The smile had dropped off Bucky’s face.

Steve had looked away and back to the people who had been talking to him.

It was Wilson who had called Bucky and had pointed him out to Steve. It had stung. 

Bucky couldn’t believe that the person who had chased him around the world to find and bring him back home, fight with his new family to get him back wasn’t as happy to see him.

Steve had slowly stood up and had approached him. Funny that Steve walked up to him only under others’ watchful eyes. Everyone had expected their reunion to be big. (Emotional, his mind had supplied) Bucky could tell as much but he couldn’t tell why Steve giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder and brushing past him had felt like _rejection_

 

In that moment, he had recalled a Steve in uniform walking away from him towards a red-dressed woman. Even that memory had a resigned sting to it.

And so had this.

 

Why?

He had watched Steve walk to where Howard’s son was lying on the ground and looked back to see Steve’s friend looking at him with surprise and as if he had understood something which Bucky hadn’t.

 

Bucky had walked up to where Steve had been standing, right next to him unable to fathom why suddenly an invisible chasm seemed to have opened between him and Steve.

 

 

Bucky watched the ruble flowing downstream, kicking pebbles into the river. He did not regret fighting for Steve. In any world that Steve lived in, he was going to fight to make it better but there wasn’t any reason for him to remain here. He needed to finish his therapy anyway.

Steve didn’t seem to care too much about it anyway.

 

“Hey, Buck.”

The voice was soft and _caring_ and Bucky closed his eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled. He opened his eyes and Steve was standing beside him. He smiled. “Hey, Stevie.”

That always brought a smile on his face. Bucky smiled wider.

It was also cooler and windier near a water body. Steve stood facing the river, the top of his hair slightly swaying in the breeze. His face was no longer covered in dirt. Blood or soot. He looked paler than ever. He looked cold and Bucky wanted to keep him warm.

Silence used to be his preferred company before. But right then? 

“How’s he?”, he asked to punctuate that uncomfortable silence.

“Tony?”

“Yeah.”

Steve sighed, shifting on one foot. “The doctors said he- he’s been stabilised but they can’t tell when…” His voice trailed off. He didn’t need to elaborate. Bucky had seen Howard’s son lying on the ground, the gauntlet burned. A part of him had scarred, two and three degree burns and in comatose. It had to be a miracle for him to have survived at all. But was it really surviving if it was only just breathing?

 

“Technology is almost like miracle now. They’ll find a way to cure him, yeah?”

Steve finally glanced at him. “You think so?”

“Yeah.” Steve snorted and looked away. “What?” Bucky tilted his head, turning slightly towards Steve. He wanted to read all his expressions this close. Steve didn’t look a day older than when he had last seen him in Wakanda but he felt older. Tired. Exhausted. Bucky looked away this time.

 

He never knew when it was going to be taken away again from him, this chance to being next to Steve.

 

“It’s just… here we are and you’re the one who is doing the consoling.”

Bucky frowned. “Whatever you need, Steve.”

The words had seemed right in his head and yet, somehow it ended up being not correct.

Steve’s flinched. He opened his mouth and shut it as fast.

“Steve-”

“Bucky, I’m headin’ back. Don’t stay out too late.”

Bucky wanted to joke that he wasn’t his Pa but Steve was already walking away. He watched as Steve got farther and farther away. It took him couple of seconds to realise he had his hand raised as if to stop the other man, to pull him back.

 

Somehow when the entire world was getting all their loved ones back, Bucky was losing his.

 

 

***

 

 

Bucky came back to the cabin at dusk. Steve had built the wooden cabin at the periphery of the Avengers Facility with his own hands after the Decimation. He never gave a reason why but Bucky could tell why. Bucky had assumed he would be heading back to Wakanda with King T’Challa’s troupe but they had decided to halt for the night. Bucky had wandered off into the woods, not expecting to be invited in even though everyone had been. He was a murderer after all. Steve, however, had come looking for him and invited him to stay with him in the cabin. Bucky had thought that Steve wouldn’t call him and yet he had. The former assassin had been relieved for some reason and had trailed after him into the cabin in the woods.

 

The cabin had been bare except for a large table, a chair, a couch and a television set in the hall. There was also a small bedroom and a kitchen.

 

“Where’s the bathroom?”

 

“This place is for night outs.” He hadn’t answered Bucky’s question in any way that mattered and had just raised more. Bucky let it go. He didn’t think he would have gotten any proper answer out of him. Steve had let him take the bedroom and had gone out instead of sleeping. When Bucky had argued, he had simply answered, “I have no need of that.”

 

The cabin was already so sparse and empty, it made his heart clench. There was nothing on the walls. Not a slight bit of decoration. Nothing. There were just notepads and diary, however.

 

Bucky walked slowly around the table to find the shield propped against it o the floor. He swept his eyes around the cabin. Steve wasn’t around and he had left it lying here? It didn’t seem like him at all. He was particularly attached to it. He picked the shield and tested his grip on it. It didn’t feel all that different from when he had picked it up for the first time back in the camp after he had been rescued in Azzano by Steve. Bucky huffed and put it down. As he bent down to place it carefully on the floor, a few notepads and diaries stacked under the couch caught his eyes. It was odd. Bucky had read Steve as someone who was very tidy and very organised. At least, his memory from Post-HYDRA days told him that. He pulled out the one closest and turned the cover over. The notepad was mostly blank except for scribbling on random pages. Intrigued, he pulled the others out. He picked up the thickest diary next and as he did so a photograph fell out of it. It was a washed out picture of a woman that Bucky could recognise. Agent Carter. Former Director of SHIELD; his assigned target till his Handler had on a short notice changed it to Howard Stark.

 

There wasn’t a lot in his memory about her before he became the Asset.

 

He opened the diary. It was a recent diary- marked 2023. The other diaries were of the preceding years. The 2023 diary turned out to be full of random drawing and sketches of the same woman- the woman who had asked Steve out and hadn’t looked at Bucky at all. He hadn’t been offended at that that he he had been chosen over. He had been happy for Steve. Bucky only had two distinct feelings associated with the memory. Happiness and fear.

 

He closed his eyes.

 

Happy that Steve had found his dame but fear that Bucky was losing his touch- that he no longer was same, that something in him was changing and he wasn’t even being able to pretend properly to hide that.

 

He opened his eyes.

 

He must have pretended well enough that Steve never clued in.

The slowed steps on the other side of the door alerted him to cabin’s owner arrival. Bucky dropped the diary from his hand, stood up and kicked them back under the couch and right then, he had the answer as to how they had ended up under the couch.

 

The door opened and Steve walked in.

Steve had hidden it from visible sight to not draw attention to them but must not have cared enough if they were going to be lying carelessly under the couch. Bucky was the Asset after all.

 

He pushed the door shut . “Hey, Buck.” There that was again. Steve smiled in his direction but didn’t look at him. “You can go to the main building, you know. They’re having a small feast in celebration.” Steve looked uncomfortable, not meeting his eyes. “Pepper or Rhodey won’t mind if you join them.”

Bucky frowned again. “I don’t care about that.”

Steve finally looked at him and then quickly, glanced away. “Okay.”

“What’s the problem?”

“What problem?”

“Why don’t you look at me?” The question was funny but Steve was making Bucky feel funny and not in a good way.

“I- Buck-” Steve raked a hand through his hair. He looked tensed, wound up, the jaw muscle ticking. Was this a reaction to seeing Bucky in his cabin? “Nothing. Nothing happened.” He stopped near the chair and asked, “Would you mind if I used the bedroom today? I am a bit tired.”

“No, Steve, I don’t mind. It is yours.”

“Okay, thanks-”

“No, what I mind is you’re trying to hide from me.”

“What’re you takin’ abou’?”

“Steve.” Bucky exhaled loudly. “I know you’re grieving. You have lost a friend but why are you-”

“Buck, don’t.” Steve said sharply.

“Don’t what?”, Bucky asked, challenging.

“Nothing.”

“I am not fragile, Steve. I am not going to get violent without prompt. So cut that out.” Bucky crossed his arms. “Out with it.”

“You won’t understand.” 

“Why?”

Steve fisted and unfisted his hands repeatedly and Bucky waited patiently for him to talk. “I-” He shifted on his feet and moved behind the chair as if to put anything between himself and Bucky. “They were my new family, Buck. They helped me adjust in a world I am not from nor had I ever wanted to be in. They had tried so hard to give me something meaningful and here I am, alive and kicking when they are not.”

“Steve-”

“Don’t Steve me and you know that. What right do I have to be alive and living when they are-” Steve’s voice hitched and he faced away from him. “It is like a cycle. Every time I get something, someone close to me gets hurt.”

“That’s not how it is, Steve.”

“Then how is it?” Steve looked up, his eyes red-rimmed. He slammed his hand on the back of the chair. “Because from where I see it, it is by damn fault of mine.”

Bucky uncrossed his arms, confused. “Why would you even think that?”

“Because it is!” Steve’s voice is barely restrained. “Because is my damn fault! Only if I had not fought them and we hadn’t fractured like that maybe we could have fought Thanos together and stopped him the first time.”

It was like he was looking at Steve but it was a stranger talking. He looked angry and it was not his self-rightous fury.

“That is a lot of maybes,” Bucky said gently. “Besides, you have undone it now, haven’t you? Everyone’s back.” The words are out before he can stop them. Steve hissed as if rankled.

“No. No, Bucky, they aren’t.” His hands gripped the back of the chair tightly.

“We-”

“Everyone is back, Buck except for my friends. We are all fine, Buck except for my friends because either they are dead or dying.” His voice is lowered, straining to not be loud and it cuts through Bucky. “It is like every time, _every_ time I am this _close_ to being happy, someone close to me gets taken away.” The wood in his hand was close to giving away. “Every time. Every fucking time.” The wood didn’t splinter. No, because Steve picked it up and hurled it across from where he was standing and the chair smashed on the wall. There was splinter everywhere and broken wooden legs on the floor.

The loud crash made Bucky startle too hard and he reached for the knife in his hip pocket before he dropped his hand because he didn’t carry those knives on him anymore.

“That is what I see when I look around me, Buck. When I look at anybody. Everyone got their happy ending. I am over a century old and where’s mine?” The anger ebbed out from his voice. “Where is mine? Why doesn’t it just end for me?” 

 

Bucky’s chest hurt.

 

He asked slowly, forcing himself to stay and talk and not take flight from the place. Steve didn’t seem very different from his Handlers then. “What about me, Steve?”, he asked softly. “Doesn’t my coming back mean anything to you?”

 

Steve whose hands were raised as if ready to pull his hair out froze them midair. “What?”

“Natasha, Howard’s son and everyone else, everybody’s life matters. I know. You care about everybody and they were your friends. New family.”

“What are you sayin’, Buck?” Steve dropped his hands.

“I am not comparin’.” Bucky chuckled nervously. “I haven’t been around for a long time. I know my place but you’d think that for all the effort you put in to chase and find a person like me, fight against those friends to find me, you’d be happier to see me. You had been happier to see that Tree in Wakanda.” Bucky laughed consciously. He hadn’t spoken his thoughts out loud since a damn long time. His therapist in Wakanda had told him he would find satisfaction or a closure if he voiced his thoughts. 

”I-” Steve looked at a loss. “I am happy, Buck. Why do you think I’m not?”

“Are you?” Bucky hated the way his voice sounded, weak, pathetic, as if he needed the assurance but his instincts didn’t tell him to shut up. His Handlers hated if he asked or said anything beyond what he was supposed to and now he was putting a leg out. It felt like a dangerous territory. Would he have to regret it? “Because you don’t seem so.”

“No?” Steve’s eyes widened, shocked. “No, Buck,” his voice louder and asserting. He took a step towards him.

“Maybe you regret it?” Bucky took a step back. The back of his legs hit the couch. “Maybe you regret trying to save me. Because of me, you got separated from your friends and - and this happened.” His voice was shaky and his hands trembled. “Maybe I really hadn’t been worth it you have realised.” His hands balled into a tight fist. Steve looked horrified. Bucky lowered his eyes, he being unable to meet his friend’s eyes.

“No. No no no no no no, Buck.” In a quick, sharp stride Steve was standing close to him and Bucky had no room to escape. “No, Buck. You are always worth it. Always. _Always._ ”

“You say that now.”

“Hey.” Steve slowly and gently cupped Bucky’s face with his hands and made Bucky look up. “Hey, look at me.” His voice was lowered and very soft. As if he was talking to a child. No, more like a - this close, it felt very …

 

“You will always be worth it. No regrets. Never.”

It felt very intimate.

“If anything, I’d rather die over and over.” Bucky snorted. He finally looked up and he could hear the second hand on the watch ticking away. Steve and him were still standing so close and looking into each other’s eyes. Bucky had stopped breathing unable to tear his eyes away from Steve whose breath was getting louder.

 

Bucky had this strange thought then- that Steve was going to kiss him.

 

Steve, instead, lowered his head enough to kiss Bucky on the forehead and then hugged him tight. All the actions leaving Bucky confused but happier, feeling safer. They stood in the hallway like that for a full minute before Steve pulled away from the hug. Bucky didn’t like that but he could deal with that later.

 

“Had dinner? Do you want me to cook something for you?”, Steve asked smiling.

“Is there anything edible in this house?” Bucky asked, raising an eyebrow.

“There should be some eggs,bread…” Steve smiled sheepishly. “Or, I can get us a takeout.”

“No, no takeout. I want to see how you cook.” 

Steve walked backwards to the kitchen without even a second glance. “It is going to be a very simple meal.” He grinned.

“I’m famished then.”

“Can you set up the TV? We can watch somethin’ while eatin’.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Steve turned around at the kitchen threshold and disappeared into it. Bucky’s smile widened a bit. He whistled as he set up the TV, positioned the couch better and made sure the stuff underneath weren’t in direct line of vision at all. He gave a cursory glance to the broken chair and decided he couldn’t be bothered by it right then. He knew Steve was upset about losing his friends but who wouldn’t be? He would give him time and space. That is what one needed, right?

 

He was going to talk to Steve about it later but at that moment? He was going to enjoy it while it lasted; come morning, they could touch the difficult topics. He just needed one night for respite and share it peacefully with the soldier who was bent on saving him.

 

Bucky touched his face, his mouth and the muscles around it. Smiling in itself was such a strange thing. Smiling genuinely. He wasn’t faking it as a part of mission. This was honest smiling because of his best man, Steve Rogers.

 

The former sniper tried not to have a spring in his feet as he walked into the kitchen, the buzz under his skin feeling fantastic.

As he stood behind Steve watching him break the eggs and pour and fry them on a pan, Bucky recalled a time in the past where an older lady had been cooking something similar in a very small kitchen and the boy standing next to her had been sickly, thin with a head full of dark blond hair and kept looking in his direction. He was saying something but Bucky couldn’t make out what.

 

“Buck”, Steve snapped his fingers in front of him. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. Just remembered somethin’.”

“Yeah?” Steve turned back to the stove. “Anythin’ good?”

“Yeah. Good. Definitely.”

“That’s good then.”

“Yeah.”

Bucky stood next to him and watched the pan. “It was you-” Steve’s phone began ringing loudly.

“One minute.” Steve took the phone out of his pocket and swiped it. It was Professor Hulk. What was his human name? Banner? Hulk Banner? “Hello, Bruce.”

“Hey, Cap. Where’re you now?” There was loud music on the other side and Steve put a bit of distance between the electronic device and his ear.

“Cabin.”

“Sergeant Barnes with you?”

“Yeah,” Bucky should thank the Professor. Because of him, they had come back. He had come back. To Steve.

“Are you busy now or …?”

“We are just cooking dinner. What happened?”

“Can we talk for a moment? Needed to discuss a few things. Sorry, I would have waited till-”

“It is no problem. Hang on.” Steve changed the grip on the handle from one hand to the other. “Hey Buck, can you keep an eye on this?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks.” Steve very casually and as if on muscle memory, kissed him on the temple and headed out of the kitchen. Bucky froze to the spot. Was this something Steve and him used to do… Had they shared before? He made a noise in frustration. Why could he never remember anything important at the right moment?! “Yes, tell me. Is there an issue?” Steve left the room oblivious.

Bucky didn’t try to eavesdrop. Whatever it was, if important, Steve would share it. He resigned himself to making omelette. He didn’t actually know how to cook. It wasn’t like HYDRA would be giving him cooking lessons. He hadn’t been like the other agents. He had been an Asset. He was only brought in to do one thing and nothing that would require him to stick around enough to need cooking lessons. The thought was so bizarre it made him snort hard. So much so that he started laughing and once that started, he couldn’t stop laughing. His hand slipped from the handle and he propped it against the counter as the other clutched his belly. He doubled over laughing. He didn’t remember laughing and it kind of hurt but the good kind. He was laughing loudly so much that his eyes got teary and a fresh peel of laughter escaped him. 

 

Only the burning smell of the eggs made him pause and turn off the gas. He leaned against the counter, gasping.

“You okay?” Steve asked, appearing out of nowhere. He looked at Bucky fondly and maybe he had been standing there for a while.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay.It’s just Hydra-” He pointed at the pan, “eggs,” waved his hand in explanation and started laughing.

Why was he laughing so much?

Why did it feel like happiness? Why?

Steve looked amused and came closer. “You can explain to me what was so funny so that I could laugh along?”

Bucky abruptly stopped laughing. “Right.” He explained the cause. Steve didn’t laugh but it made Bucky wheeze. He reached out with one hand to hold the other super soldier to continue laughing. All through out of him being hysterical (what else was it?) Steve looked at him like he was something of importance, someone who was important to Steve and then he remembered a hazy memory of catching his own reflection in a glass after Steve had declared they were going to board the Schnellzug EB912 train carrying Arnim Zola. Bucky had been determined to follow through his words.

He was going to follow Steve Rogers into the jaws of death.

 

And, he had. 

 

That memory promptly shut his laughter down. He hoped Steve was going to not do anything stupid or at least, wait till Bucky could be at his side, protecting him.

Given their history,he knew how long he could expect himself to be next to the man.

“Buck?”

“I’m good now. No more.” He mimed zipping his lips and searched for plates. “Hey, Stevie?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Steve’s smile was bright and heart warming. “You’re welcome.” He made a funny face. “Now let me finish this.” Steve surprisingly was better at preparing it than he was. In thirteen minutes, they were out in the hall, settling on the couch.

Well, Steve had. Bucky had been fiddling with the TV.

The previous night they hadn’t even been in the same room so he didn’t know what to do or why he was feeling so … awkward.

“Any problem?”

“No.”

“Sit then.” Steve put his plates aside, stood up to take the remote control and Bucky sat down on the couch. He was neither at the corner nor in the middle. Bucky picked his plate followed by Steve who sat down where the plates had been- right next to him. He sat comfortably and watched the TV with rapt attention. Bucky couldn’t say the same of his own focus as it constantly turned towards Steve.

They took time to finish their meal. Once they were done, Steve took Bucky’s plate too from his hand and pushed it under the couch.

Maybe the other things being under the couch hadn’t been significant after all.

 

After sometime, Bucky found himself drifting off which was very odd since he couldn’t force himself to sleep, always on alert. And,now he was struggling to keep his eyes open. Maybe Steve’s company made him feel safe. Steve would keep him safe if anything would happen, right? He sunk under after a couple of minutes of watching TV.

 

Had he known that they had less time left together, he would have fought tooth and nail with himself to keep himself awake.

 

But, he hadn’t. He hadn’t known at all.

 

He wasn’t alarmed when the last thing he heard Steve say before he drifted of was, “You won’t understand, Buck. You don’t know what you mean to me. You don’t know what it is like to lose you. I can’t watch you die again. I can’t. I hope someday you will f-”

Bucky had drifted off.

 

He had woken up for a few seconds in the middle, his head propped on Steve’s lowered shoulders, the TV’s volume on mute. “Shhh..”Steve had said, “Sleep, Buck. You’re safe with me.”

 

 

Next morning when Bucky had woken up Steve hadn’t been there and he hadn’t been on the couch. He had woken up on the bed. He had rushed out of the house, his heart beating in trepidation because Steve’s words came flooding in and raising alarms in his mind only then. He had rushed out of the cabin towards the clearing where he could hear the Hulk Scientist and Sam. He walked closer and closer and his heartbeat got louder.

“Hey, Morning, Grumpyhead.” Sam said cheerfully. “Just waiting for you.”

Bucky slowed down as Steve came in with a case in his hand and he stopped next to Sam. Steve didn’t look at him. No greeting, no glance. He was back to ignoring him.

 

Hulk was starting a machine and they were going over the ‘last minute details and recap.” 

 

 

And, at that moment, Bucky knew his time with Steve had ended even before it had began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it isn't going to be one preposterously long chapter but two-three more shorter chapters.


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's truth anyway?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian, Xhosa- Google translated.
> 
>  
> 
> I have a lot of feelings for Stucky/Bucky. It is borderline unhealthy but eh. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left kudos and comments. **Thank you so much.**

_Thought we built a dynasty like nothing ever made_  
_Thought we built a dynasty forever couldn't break up_  
_It all fell, it all fell down_

**\- Dynasty | MIIA**

 

 

Bucky watched Steve as he prepared himself to take the stones back in time to not alter or disturb the timeline. Steve worked with determination and he knew he could do nothing to change the mind of the former from doing whatever he planned on doing.

 

Steve hugged him, saying Bucky’s lines back to him. So, he parroted Steve’s back to him.

 

He watched Steve climb that contraption. Hulk explained that he would be gone for all of five seconds even if it could a long time on Steve’s side. He didn’t even glance at him. Not even once. As Hulk flicked the buttons, Bucky held his breath. Hoping against hope that his suspicion wouldn’t be true. When the five-seconds mark cross and Steve isn’t standing in front of them, Bucky was sure.

 

He just hadn’t thought his time with Steve would last even lesser.

 

Or, that this time it wouldn’t be fate.

 

Bucky turned away, shaking his head slightly.

 

This time it was Steve who had separated them.

 

He noticed an old man sitting on the bench a few yards away and Bucky struggled to push back the fear rising in him. He smiled at Sam, encouraging him to approach the older looking man. Bucky couldn’t bring himself to check.

 

Because if that was really Steve, he-

Said man turned to face Sam and it was Steve. Not the Steve Bucky had fallen asleep on. He didn’t look like that Steve. This was a man who looked closer to his actual age. Not the young man he should have looked like.

 

And even though Bucky was an enhanced homo sapien, a cyborg to many, he couldn’t hear anything around him. It was as if the volume was being turned down. He felt and saw the Professor rush past him towards the other soldiers.

 

It was as if vacuum descending. Then Steve stood up, slow and unsteady on his feet before he hugged Hulk.

Bucky was rooted to the spot. He watched them converse, unable to make out a single word being uttered. All he saw was Steve happy, smiling and as the light caught on the silver band on his finger, he found out Steve had even gotten married.

 

Steve had lived out a life in the past and again?

 

It felt like a betrayal.

 

Steve had found a family, been happy and shared life with someone and that hadn’t been him. Not him.

 

He watched them leave from there and move to the reconstruction site where everybody was.

Bucky turned around and started walking. His legs took him back to the cabin. He climbed onto the porch and stopped in front of the door. It was left ajar. Because he hadn’t thought Steve would _leave_ him. He had assumed Steve was going to take off to do something brave but stupid and at the end of it, return to him.

 

He hadn’t-

 

His head hurt. Was his brain malfunctioning again? Maybe he had dreamed everything up. Maybe finding Steve again had been a hallucination created by HYDRA. That wasn’t impossible.

That wasn’t impossible.

That wasn’t impossible.

Maybe the last few years had been an elaborate scheme, a very elaborate _cruel_ scheme on his Handler’s part.

 

Cruel.

 

Maybe he never escaped.

 

He pushed the door open and stepped inside. Another step later, the door shut behind him. Bucky winced reaching for the no-longer-there knife in his pocket for the second time under twenty-four hours. He needed to get a grip on himself. He needed to figure out what was happening.

Maybe the Decimation hadn’t occurred five years ago. Maybe it had taken longer to undo it.

 

Bucky had to figure out what had happened.

 

If this was an elaborate lie then Steve should be fine.

Or, his mind had fucked up majorly and last night hadn’t happened. Steve couldn’t have aged decades overnight.

He had to find out. He had to. He needed to know.

 

Bucky took a shaky breath in and instead of moving forward, he sunk on his feet.

 

His head throbbed as his eyes rung. If all of this was a lie or a hallucination, why did it feel like a betrayal? Why did it feel like Steve had broken his heart?

 

Bucky clutched his head and moaned soundlessly.

 

_Какая сегодня дата?_

_Bucky couldn’t understand._

_Какая сегодня дата, Солдат?_

 

_He wasn’t able to understand his Handler nor answer his question. Bucky had screamed and screamed till the inside of his mouth was dry and bleeding._

 

_I don’t know. I don’t know, I swear._

 

 _What is today’s date_ the question had been. It had been simple but he couldn’t tell the answer for some reason.

 

_I don’t remember, I can’t remember. Please. Pleas-_

 

 

 

His mind transported back to prison. He was still sitting on the floor, his clothes soaked through with sweat. There was blood under his nails.

 

_Seventeen_

 

All it had been but Bucky’s brain had already begun to fuck up by then. 

 

That night or day or they had been nights who knew. What Bucky did know was they had been endless torture. Some of the worst.

 

Bucky scanned his eyes around him. It took him four seconds to find his bearings. Cabin. Steve’s Cabin. He was in Avengers’ Facility. He tried standing up but his legs shook and he staggered. He unzipped his black hoodie and threw it away. He dragged himself to the kitchen.

 

He rested his hands on the sink counter breathing heavily, before turning on the faucet. He washed his face a couple of times before turning it off. He pushed back from the counter, his chest heaving. He was having a hard time keeping his mind from dissociating.

 

“Kuya kuba nzima”, she had said. “Kodwa kufuneka uqhubeke uzama*

 

Keep trying she had said.

 

Bucky was trying. His fingers gripped the edge of the counter hard, eyes screwed shut, chest heaving. Being in the kitchen where he and Steve had been sharing such a nice moment, now a distant moment, it didn’t help. It flared his temper. Bucky slammed one hand on the counter and it cracked under the impact.

 

Disgusted, Bucky took several steps away from it. Even all those visits to the mind doctor, it wasn’t helping. Why couldn’t get a grip?

 

_kufuneka uqhubeke uzama_

 

A sudden knock on the main door made him jolt. Who-

“Bucky? Barnes? It’s Wilson. I have .. come with a…” 

 

No

“Guest” he finished lamely.

Bucky wiped his face with flesh arm. He ran a hand through his hair and cleared his throat. \

“Gimme a minute,” he grunted.

 

He half dragged himself and half shuffled over. He wiped his face again with the back of his hand and then yanked the door open.

“Hi.” Bucky smiled but it felt stiff and wrong. He most likely looked like the deranged murderer he was.

“If you won’t mind,” Steve- the Old Steve came in front of him and said, “I would like to come inside?” He smiled at Bucky, that stupid sad smile he had after rescuing Bucky from Azzano. The ex-assassin stared at the wrinkles and all the lines that hadn’t been there on Steve’s face until a few hours ago.

Bucky pulled the door open wider. “Your home.” His voice was off as when it did after the Maintenance Sessions. His throat hurt. He stepped aside as the two men entered the cabin. Steve was slow, his hand had a slight tremor, his hair coiffed. He looked like the utter gentleman that he was. Someone who had lived the life they had deserved. Steve turned him around, looking at the inside of the cabin with fascination and nostalgia.

 

Of course, the few seconds to Bucky had become years to Steve.

 

It was hard to keep his temper in check after that.

“What- you guys have trouble in heaven?” Sam said, pointing at the broken chair and wiggling his eyebrows. Steve turned around to look at what Sam was talking about. Bucky glared at him. If he were not Steve’s friend, he would have been dead.

“That-”

Sam’s eyes were round saucers and realised his faux-pas. “I- Hey, Old Man, you want some tea?” He asked Steve suddenly who blinked at the sudden question.

“Sure.”

“I’ll-” Sam pointed towards the inside of the cabin and escaped before Bucky could lay his hands on him.

 

Steve and he were standing in the hall, few feet apart and with no words to say each other. What Bucky wouldn’t have given to not be himself at that moment.

 

“Buck-”

“Barnes, you need to repair some of this stuff!” Sam shouted from the kitchen. “Where’s the tea leaves anyway?”

“I wouldn’t know. It is only been two days since I have been here.”

Steve looked away. “Sam, maybe I can assist you.” His voice was weaker than before. He sounded fragile. Steve looked fragile. If Bucky punched him maybe his hand would find a few broken bones. “Excuse me,” he said as if they had been talking and they were interrupted. Steve went to the kitchen to help Sam.

 

This was crazy. It was maddening. Bucky couldn’t think why Steve would have done this.

 

This wasn’t real, right?

 

Had the previous night a figment of his imagination. There was no way-

The diaries. He had seen them. They should be there. He got down on his knees and found the notepads and diaries just as he had left them. He pulled them out and picked the diary on top of it.

 

He had been expecting Carter on it. However, he found his sketches on it. As he rifled through the diary, only his sketches he found.

 

What the fuck?

 

There was no photography either of Peggy Carter.

 

He searched it back to front. None.

 

He dropped it and picked the next one. This was the one with Peggy. The one he had seen. It even had the photograph.

Had Steve touched the stack in the night and had changed the order?

 

It is only then he noticed the first diary he had just picked up was 2018. The year Decimation happened. All the other diaries were of 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. He went through all of them. Peggy’s sketches were only there from the second half of 2022. All the rest had Bucky’s sketches. Bucky in Wakanda, with Natasha. Bucky smiling. Bucky in his former military costume. Bucky on the train. Bucky in Coney Island amusement park. Bucky in his Winter Soldier gear. Bucky sitting with darker skinned children. Bucky getting his hair tied by children. Bucky in his field.

 

Why had gone from an obsessive drawing of him to Peggy?

 

“Buck-”

 

Bucky turned his head slowly and looked up at Steve. The diaries dropped carelessly from his hands. He stood up slower.

“But Cap, herbal tea is-” Sam stopped right behind Steve. He looked between Bucky and Steve. “Is-”

“Get out,” Bucky said, lowering his voice.

“B-”

“Get out!” He snapped and making his message of intense pain clear if he was to be argued with.

“It is okay, Sam. Go on. I’ll join you in some time.”

“If you’re sure?”

“I’m. Now go.”

Sam placed the two cups he had been holding on the table. “Okay. Call me if you need anything.” 

 

Bucky ignored the look the Falcon gave him, his eyes dead set on Steve. He waited till Sam exited.

 

“Why?”

 

Steve lowered his eyes. Guilt.

 

“Why?” Bucky growled. Steve remained silent. “Why? Why, dammit. Why?”

“I wish I had an answer for you but-”

“What is all this, Steve? If you wanted to live a life, you could have just said. Why did you have to hide it from me? Run back into the past to do this?”

Steve looked regretful. It wasn’t enough. He needed answers.

 

“What are those drawings for? What are all my drawings for? You even stopped doing them. Changed to Carter. Was that when you were losing hope? That maybe I wasn’t going to come back? So what if I had? Would you have chosen me?”

“Buck!” Steve looked at him surprised.

“Why didn’t you? Wait for me, huh? Why didn’t you?”

“I- I didn’t want to lose you again.” Steve’s voice was barely audible.

Bucky scoffed. “Look at us now. Whatever the fuck you did, you are agin’ now. I’m still me. You didn’t want to lose _me_ ? What about me losing _you_ ?”

“I’m sorry, Bucky. At that moment, it had seemed like the right thing to do.”

“How did leaving me behind, leaving me alone seem, right, Stevie?” Bucky moved closer to him. “Let’s say if I had come back earlier, would you still have left me?” He raised his hands and this time his hands reached Steve. Touched him. Held him. “Would you have picked me?” Bucky stared at the ring and he cornered Steve against the wall. “Would you have? Did I ever have a chance?” His eyes were ageless. They were the blues that sucked Bucky in. Reeled him in and tethered him to the world. “Because I would have. In all of my memories, the new, the old, I have loved you, you coward.” Steve’s shock drove him to keep spilling it. “For all those dames and all those jobs I used to take up, your safety, _you_ had been it all for.” Bucky raised himself on his toes to kiss Steve but stopped a hair’s breadth away from his lips. “Everything I do, we do, we just end up on the wrong side of the line.”

“I am sorry.” Steve hugged him suddenly, held him tightly and started crying. “I’m sorry.” He held onto Bucky like he was his lifeline. “This was the only way. The only way I knew.” The tears soaked through the thin cotton t-shirt. “I couldn’t afford to lose you again. Couldn’t see you die again.”

“You selfish bastard.” Bucky choked on his voice as he accused his friend, “you’re leaving me behind to lose you. It is okay for me to lose you?”

“Please Buck.”

Bucky pulled away enough that they could see each other’s face now. He gently wiped the tears on Steve’s cheeks away. He hated seeing Steve sad even when he was breaking his heart. “When I had said I would follow you into the jaws of death, I had thought it was going to be my death.”

 

“I wish there had been another way.”

 

Bucky pulled away from Steve completely. “No,” he shook his head slightly, “no, there was but you chose not to.” Bucky walked back. He took several steps back. “No. You chose not to. _I_ had no other option in Austria but _you_ had.” He looked around for his discarded hoodie, picked it up and shrugged it on. “I hope you were happy. The life you lived. I hope it made you happy.”

 

Bucky turned his back on Steve and walked to the door. He grabbed the doorknob, turned it around and opened the door. He put a foot over the threshold and paused as a thought crossed his mind.

 

 

“Funny thing. When you said last night I was worth it, I had believed you, you know?”

 

 

 

*

 

Bucky shut the door behind him and gets down the short steps. He walked away and away from the cabin in the direction opposite to where Sam had been waiting for me. He noticed from the corner of his eyes, Sam run towards the cabin. Bucky walked till Sam and the cabin both were out of his peripheral vision. He walked towards the devastated site where different camps had settled on it. The Reconstruction Unit was camping there.

 

He made a beeline for the Wakandan tents. 

 

It wasn’t very difficult to spot the Wakanda’s Monarch among everyone. 

 

T’Challa turned towards him even before he could call him out. With his hands behind his back, he waited patiently for Bucky to be within a talking distance.

 

“What can I help you with, Sergeant Barnes?”, he asked affably.

 

“I want to go back home.”

 

The King didn’t ask questions. He just said, “If you can follow me this way…” 

 

Bucky walked behind him in a daze, the destruction, the beatific horror unregistered to him. He soon boarded a jet bound for the capital city of Zana. He strapped himself to one of the seats, his head resting listlessly on the backrest.

 

 

Nothing seemed to matter anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * It is going to be difficult but you have to keep trying


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the names referring to the places in Wakanda are taken from the comics.

_They have opened the exterior casing. The wires are attached to the nodes in his arm. These nodes are where the nerves bonded to the wiring through the biological implants fixed in him._

 

_It sweats profusely, unfortunate biological feedback he can’t control. No matter how hard it tries._

_The Asset fights against the constant, consistently increasing electrical pulses to clear the fogginess out of its- no his mind. He had been a human. A man. Someone who protected people. Not hunt them. He- he has to remember it. He was-_

 

_The Asset tries to fight against the onslaught of the pain on his mind and his mind._

 

_Even though it tries to clench his mouth shut, screams escape._

 

_Another failure._

 

_Its Handler is only going to amp it._

 

_The Asset bucked in its seat, fighting to keep his memory._

 

_“Please! Ple-” I don’t want to forget. Please._

_The images of an innocent, trusted child, a shocked face get blurred and hazy. The Asset fights against the restraints holding him down on the seat. He can’t escape._

 

_No._

 

_“Готовы ли вы подчиниться?” Ready to submit?_

 

_No. No. He couldn’t._

 

_The pain was excruciating._

 

_Please, I don’t want to forget._

 

_He continues screaming._

 

_I am human._

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

 

Bucky woke up with a start. His clothes and the thin bed sheet he had been sleeping were soaked through. He coughed from a sore throat and reached for the glass kept somewhere next to him. His hand knocked the glass instead and the water spilt.

“Fuck.”

 

He hit his head back once, frustrated and then sat up, pulling himself with a groan. His head was pounding from confusion, pain. He pushed himself up and sat up, taking the support of the mud wall. He closed his eyes, counted till ten, exhaled loudly and then counted once more. He kept counting over and over till his breathing was in control.

 

Bucky opened his eyes.

 

From the corner where he was leaning against, the mud hut looked neither small nor was it spacious. He didn’t need a big house but he couldn’t feel take the chance of feeling claustrophobic. It made him lash out faster. Only an earthen pot filled with water remained intact in his little house. Everything else he had smashed to bits. Repeatedly. King T’Challa kept replacing them and Bucky kept destroying them. He could go to a shooting range or a gym or someplace else where he could target or focus his mind, shave off the pent off energy, clear his mind but he couldn’t take the risk of endangering anybody next or around him. Even with all the therapy, it was hard for him to hold on to all the pieces of his mind.

Or whatever remained of it, that is.

 

Besides, he was an honorary citizen of Wakanda but he didn’t have the privileges to go to any of those places.

 

Unlike before the Decimation, Bucky now lived close to the border Wakanda shared with Niganda. He lived at the edge of Alkama Fields. Other than vegetation, the only people who lived there were farmers and Border Security officers. They all gave a mile wide berth, not wanting into trouble with the Royalty. Although, some passing miscreants tried to see what it was about the one-handed white man that everyone left him alone. Bucky had been lucky no one got hurt. Those young men always liked testing their lucks. He was left alone for the most part of the time and he was thankful for that. While technically, he wasn’t restricted from entering public places or use public transports, Bucky hated being anywhere that brought him in close quarters with civilians. The last thing he needed was hurting an innocent bystander.

 

Bucky slid up against the wall and pushed himself forward and stumbled forward. He kicked the bed sheet away. Taking his sticky shirt off, he picked up the fallen glass. He filled it with cool water from the pot and went to the “door”. There was no door any longer. He had torn it off from its hinges because he had woken up one afternoon remembering his cryo, his freezing chamber and had then proceeded to smash it to smithereens. A thin, brick-red cloth now hung there. Bucky didn’t worry about intruders.

 

He was the most dangerous weapon in miles wide radius after all.

 

Bucky looked outside, standing at the entrance. As he sipped from his glass, he scanned his eyes through the surrounding. The area was as peaceful and serene as Nakia had told it would be. It had become his haven. No one really troubled him out here.

 

Nothing other than his memories. His nightmares.

 

Once in every two weeks, he travelled to Birnin Zana to meet his doctor, check up with Okoye, meet with the King if he was in the city. Otherwise, see the doctor and go back was his routine. He caught the train from the closest city, Azzaria. Even though Alkama Fields was part of the S’yan Prefecture, the train station of Azzaria was closer. Bucky would walk down till there. It took a few hours. Then, he would catch a train from there to Zana. It was a fixed routine. However, three nights back when he had been travelling to meet the doctor, he had felt eyes watching him.

 

He couldn’t find anyone tailing him. He was being paranoid he had thought. The doctor had asked him to be careful, told him to consider relocation to where there were more people. Not create a self-imposed exile. Bucky had just drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair before he had looked away.

 

Exile, huh?

 

If this was an exile, it wasn’t all that bad. In fact, he welcomed it.

 

Bucky’s left foot hovered in the air as he paused mid-step, the glass touching his mouth. He watched the tall grass blades. There was no air. It was absolute stillness. Then what had caught his eyes?

 

Not very far off to his right, some grass blades moved.

 

Bucky chucked the glass he was holding and took off, charging straight ahead.

 

If the intruder had no good reason then…

 

Bucky kept running till he arrived at the spot. He's crouched down and waited. He had been followed. He hadn’t been paranoid. He trusted his own senses, unfortunately. They had been developed to perfection. Bucky waited but nothing moved, no leaves rustled. Nothing.

 

As minutes passed by, Bucky felt a little lesser confident about it.

He checked around the perimeter. He found nothing. 

 

Bucky walked back the way he had left. 

 

Grass, where he had run through had been trampled.

 

What a way to start the day.

 

Bucky slowed down as his hut became visible in the distance. He began listing his activities for the day- a trip to Azzaria to buy some groceries and then come back home and well, he would think after that what he could do. He was already climbing the three steps of his little house in the wilderness when he kicked the glass accidentally by his foot. He picked it up and entered his hut.

 

He came back out with a jerk.

 

He had thrown the glass when he had taken off. How the fuck was at his doorstep? He looked back in and immediately, jumped off the short steps and looked around.

 

What the fuck?

He looked back at the stairs. No way the glass would have landed there. He then spotted the burned end of a cigar next to the stairs. There was no smell of smoke lingering in the end. Whoever had done that, they had done it deliberately. The cigar, the glass were deliberate.

 

Someone had been really watching him.

 

Whoever had that been, they must be very daring.

 

Or, very foolish.

 

Bucky hoped for their sake that they don’t come close.

 

The former assassin got back inside the house, opened his stash of fresh clothes kept in a basket, picked the first shirt he found, put it on, picked up his bag from the floor. He dipped his hand inside the pot, took the pocket knife taped to the bottom of it, put his shoes on and was out of that door under a minute. He flipped the knife as he walked across the filed, using the shorter route to Azzaria. It led him through miles and miles of abandoned fields, some of which had been destroyed in previous battles with the neighbouring country and local tribes. Bucky stayed on alert, his knife now pocketed but within reach as he traipsed across the Prefectures. His body was tensed, ready to fight.

 

Who could it be that would want to mess with the Winter Soldier?

 

It took him two hours by walk and a trip on a cattle cart to reach the nearest train station. 

 

 

He didn’t get the feeling of being watched until he was boarding the train. Instead of getting down at the main market of Azzaria, Bucky took a detour. He sat in the train till they crossed a few more stations. He got down in Mena Ngai and waited at the station. He waited patiently.

 

The cigar had been of an American brand.

How difficult would it be for him to find one of his own?

 

So, Bucky lay in wait till the daylight gave way to darkness. When the dusk had settled in, he began to feel foolish.

 

Maybe he was just paranoid.

 

His mind was a clusterfuck.

 

When the nearest clock displayed a quarter past ten, Bucky finally left his spot and walked into the nearest restaurant. He was hungry. His stomach had been constantly growling.

 

The local news was playing on the telly. As he waited now for his order at the booth nearest exit, the Breaking News segment drew his attention.

 

Multi-billionaire Tony Stark of the Stark Industries was finally out of comatose state. The world was rejoicing the miraculous recovery of their favourite billionaire.

Two years, the journalist said, since Iron Man had slipped into a coma and Steve Rogers had stepped down from the role of Captain America.

 

Bucky looked away from the screen, his hands balled into fists on the table.

 

He heard the running feet first before he saw the kid. The child was bare feet. He was running around with a napkin. He ran down the aisle and stopped in front of Bucky.

 

“Nkosi?”

Bucky took one hand off the surface of the table and put it on his thigh. “What?”, he grunted in Wakandan. The kid threw the napkin at him and bailed from there. Bucky looked at the kid in amusement before he saw what was written inside of it.

“Try harder next time. James.” 

The white napkin was smudged with black powder. Bucky took a sniff. Cigar. He shot off from his seat and rushed out. There was no child and no one suspicious.

 

Bucky was sick of this game. He thought he had gotten an out from that life but alas, no. He stuffed the napkin in his pocket and went back inside.

 

_“Please. Please, stop it.” He had been crying. Who even is he? He can’t even recall his name._

_“Answer correctly and we can stop.” The voice is cold and unforgiving._

_“Please-” His eyesight is blinded by the light, by shocks. His brain will explode. It hurts so much. He can’t even think._

_“Answer, Soldier and we can stop.”_

_“I-” The drilling is slowing down._

_“What do you long for, Soldier?” His jaws have locked down from the pain. He can’t answer. The drilling is turned back on. Bucky screams. Through the noise he hears, “Freedom is a myth for you, my soldier.” He isn’t able to see his Handler. “You are only but an asset. Something for me to use, maintain and dispose. Your mind, your body is Hydra’s. Is mine.” In the pain, he feels a hand petting his head. “If you behave yourself, submit yourself, I can take care of you.”_

_His legs jerk in the seats and then they still. Followed by his hand and body._

 

_“If you submit, it will be less painful.” Its body tenses, ready to recoil and strike. The drilling noise is reducing. The hand doesn’t stop petting. “Because the only thing you can have of freedom is its longing.” The drilling stopped completely. “Do you want freedom?”_

 

_“No.”_

 

_There was no longer any pain._

 

_“Good.” The hand retracted from its head. “готовы подчиниться?”_

 

_The Asset opened eyes. "Я жду приказаний."_

 

_Ready to comply_

 

 

 

 

He couldn’t recall who was his Handler before Vasily Karpov even though he had read all the files on him. He had massacred most of them except for his first Handler. The Handler who had created the trigger words, however, had managed to vanish from Hydra, redacting and wiping all and every record, leaving Bucky behind as the only proof of his existence.

 

He couldn’t recall the face of the person who had broken him; who had broken Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.

 

Bucky stared at the bent spoon in his hand. A tear fell on his hand and he dropped the spoon on the table. He wiped his face roughly and got up and left his seat. He paid the bill on his way out and took the road back to the station.

 

Every day that Bucky lived, breathed in Wakanda, every passing day was a testimony to him fighting for that freedom. As long as he lived, maybe Bucky won’t have that freedom but he won’t stop fighting for it.

 

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

Bucky sat, his one leg tucked under another, facing his doctor. They had been sitting in silent, Bucky unable to word his concern. He had been followed twice, no more after that last incident. It had been a month since then. Of course, he wasn’t paranoid. That napkin was still with him. No, his concern had been whether he should be reporting it to the King or not. Because what if it was Hydra? He couldn’t risk the local people. But what if it was someone else? Who could it be then? If it was a matter he could solve by himself, there was no need for involving the Monarch.

 

“Anything on your mind?”

Bucky clenched and unclenched his metal hand. “Not as much as it should have been.”

The psychologist gave a short bark of a laugh. “Okay then. See you two weeks later. Hopefully, I will have more to listen by then.”

Bucky gave a weak smile and got up from the chair, picking his bag up. “Thank you, Ma’am.” He gave a short nod and exited the clinic.

 

He was in Birnin Zana, the capital. He headed out for the market, his bag strapped onto one shoulder. It was a busy market day and the crowd was bustling. Too many warm bodies, chattering noise, mixed scents it made his heart rate spike. He walked through the market each time he stopped by in Zana to not completely forget what a human crowd be like, to not forget what an average, normal civilian’s life could be like. He strolled through several lanes, watching, listening, observing, cataloguing. He wore long t-shirts to not make his metallic arm extremely visible but he didn’t hide it. Everyone knew who the White Guy was. It was an open secret. Nobody touched or disturbed him though. Children would stop in front of him, ask questions. They were harmless and probing. They often caught Bucky off-guard but he never found himself doubting for a second that he could be a threat to them. 

 

That day, Bucky walked for an hour. He was close to the main entrance of the fortress. He spotted the Warriors from Dora Milaje in every few yards, their numbers increasing. He considered if he should check in with T’Challa. As he walked closer to the entrance, the guards milling about increased his curiosity. He stayed away in the distance, trying to see what was happening inside the premise. As he hid in the shadow, Bucky reminded himself that he had permission to enter the royal grounds whenever he wanted. So, he came out of the shadows and put his Kimoyo bracelet on and placed on the scanning panel at the gate as the guards watched him undisclosed interest. Once scanned, he thanked the guard in front of him.

 

Something in the glass’s reflection caught his eyes. He turned around and swept his eyes over the people around. No. None suspicious. He shook his heads and walked through the large palatial gates.

 

 

He should have known what was causing the buzz; why the guards had looked at him with renewed interest.

 

On the far right, a jet was parked in the open field. He could recognise it anywhere. Steve always flew in to visit him during his treatment before Decimation in that.

 

His bag slipped from his shoulder to the crook of his elbow.

 

The King was several yards away from where he was standing; shaking T’Challa’s hand was Steve. Of course, it was not the Steve who had stepped on the Quantum machine. It was the Steve whom Bucky had left behind in the cabin.

 

T’Challa noticed Bucky and told the soldier something. Ex-soldier. Steve slowly turned around.

 

 

 

Bucky’s breath hitched. Despite everything why couldn’t he stop being in love with Steve Rogers?


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh soldier, come back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Names for Wakandan places are taken from comics.

Bucky stood there. He stood as still as a shadow. He regretted walking through the gates. Steve was standing in front of him but it wasn’t his Steve. He hadn’t somehow miraculously changed back. This was the Steve who reminded Bucky that he-

“Buck.” His voice was shaky and weak.

Bucky hated that. He hated it when Steve was vulnerable and yet Bucky could do nothing about it.

“White Wolf,” T’Challa smiled at him, “I was waiting for you. Can you wait inside? Aphiwe will accompany you till inside.” Bucky nodded, pulled the strap on tighter and forced himself to move forward. Each step dreaded. He followed the Dora Milaje warrior who had been standing behind the King, his head lowered. As he passed by them, he tried not to watch Steve from the corner of his eyes. He tucked the loose lock of hair behind his ear and tried hard not to focus on the guilt and sadness on Steve’s face. He could never seem to make Steve happy anymore.

 

It is Bucky who should be feeling guilty.

 

After they reach the waiting hall, Aphiwe snaps into attention mode at the entrance, gesturing him to continue. This waiting hall isn’t open to everyone. Bucky walked further in, appreciating the Wakandan technology. The “hall” gave the illusion of being a lush, open grassland. He could even hear running water- like a stream. So he walked some more till he found the source of the sound. It was a stream flowing at the end of the hall. It had to be an artificial stream. Bucky put down his bag next to an empty cemented bench and sat down facing the flowing water. It was cool in there. He closed his eyes, breathing in the air. There were several scents mingled together.

 

It felt peaceful.

 

He should relocate. Somewhere near Lake Nyanza.

 

“Bucky.”

 

The ex-assassin exhaled.

 

“Yes?”

"Can I sit down here?", Steve asked.

Bucky shifted on the seat in answer. The former Captain America sat down next to him.

“I-," he began, halted, unsure and then started again, "When I had stepped into the portal that day, it hadn’t been with the intention to not come back- not … not like this. I-”, Steve paused, struggling to phrase his words the best, “I- it was a momentary decision. A hesitation that became a choice. I don’t regret it. No, but Buck- I.”

Bucky had to ask. “You were happy?”

“Yes.”

“Then that is enough.”

“Yes. It is. Should be.” Steve raised his hand and dropped it back. “I couldn’t find you Buck. I searched for you high and low but I couldn’t ever find you. Not with HYDRA nor with SHIELD.”

Bucky watched as the artificially created water body flowed, creating tranquil like the natural creation would have. Beauty can lie within what wasn’t natural, right? Maybe he could someday see the better side in himself, in the freak, unnatural creation that he was.

“They build the Winter Soldiers because of Captain America’s ‘death’. With you alive, they might have resorted to just trying to capture you.” Bucky glanced at Steve. “Didn’t they?”

Steve chuckled. “They tried.” His smile fell. “Buck-” He slowly raised his hand and very, very slowly with his fingers, hesitantly, pushed some of the locks of Bucky's s hair and tucked it behind his ear. Bucky inhaled sharply. “I can only tell words now but it cannot be enough to tell what I fell.”

“About?”

“Everything.”

Bucky shifted, turning to face the older version of his best friend. “Why did you leave Steve? You made all these promises and then you just left me behind. I could have come with you. And- and if that life had no place for me, you could have just _said_ something. It wouldn’t-it wouldn’t…” Wouldn’t have felt like a betrayal. “I love you too much, Stevie but I would have never held you back.” He could feel Steve stiffen and the hand resting on his head slightly pull away. “You said you felt guilty when you saw me. Yeah, I heard it that night. When I saw you, even through decades of brainwash and holes in memory,” Bucky watched Steve’s eyes and caught the hand at the wrist. He didn’t want Steve to pull away yet. “I felt your sincerity… your love. I suddenly had memories of this tiny blond boy who I was following around, picking after him, saving him from fights, bringing him medicines and remembered feeling so much love for him. Not just love- I was in love with you.” Steve’s eyes were so wide, he was shocked. Bucky could hear the elevated heart rate. “You didn’t know, huh?” Bucky snorted. “Should have known.” He felt bitter. “I had thought maybe that’s why you kept chasing the Asset; that underneath all that, you were just waiting for that person to return to you.” Bucky let go of Steve’s hand. “It must be the holes in the memories. Made it seem like maybe you wanted me more than as a friend.” Steve wasn’t breathing but he wasn’t saying anything either. “Sorry.” He got up and took one step back, one away from Steve. “It is not in my place to say this. I have no right and you don’t need to hear this.” Steve stood up, his face was ashen. Why did he look like _he_ was being hurt? Why were his eyes brimming with tears when it was Bucky’s heart that was breaking? “Sorry, but,” It hurt to speak, his throat choking up, “it sometimes awfully feels like before being hers, you were mine.” It sounded stupid aloud but he had to say what he thought. What he felt. He was going to go crazy hiding these emotions.

 

Although he didn’t say what he really wanted to say- I am still in love with you.

 

“Bucky- you never told me before that y-”

 

“Steve?” Steve immediately stopped and they both looked at Natasha standing at the entrance, her arms folded. “Солдат.” Bucky nodded back. “We are ready to fly, Steve.” He felt relief knowing that Little Spider had survived somehow. She was hard to kill after all. Steve looked back at Bucky beseechingly but the former assassin couldn’t tell what he wanted. He was afraid to interpret any of his actions anymore.

Steve sighed. “Hopefully, we can meet again” He turned around and approached Natasha. Bucky walked towards the other direction. This felt it. Like this was the end for them. He walked till he found a window camouflaged in the design. He threw his bag through it. Then he stepped on the ledge, it wasn’t at a good height, but a slight misstep, it was a sheer drop of the hill. Bucky landed carefully on the ground, standing on the edge, contemplating whether he should jump off the edge. Steve had been the reason he hadn’t put the bullet in his mouth, that he was living. Without Steve what was he going to do? His life had been about his family and Steve, then, it became fighting for the country which turned to for HYDRA. He had come back out of it, recognizing the need to protect Steve. Without him, this life of his was worthless. What was he going to protect? Who? There was no one left in his life.

 

He stood there for the longest, at the edge, hesitating for reasons beyond him.

 

He stood there till the sky was covered in orange, purple lights and he woke up from his stupor.

 

Bucky walked back to the main gate, passing through the security, following all procedures on muscle memory. His eyes were glazed. He walked into the market where he got jostled, pushed back in the crowd. He didn’t stop. His feet took him to the railway station. People next to him, around him, kept changing, they passed by but Bucky could take no notice of them.

 

He felt hollow. It felt like when he had found his Handler, his very first Handler who had broken him and rebuilt him into this Asset he is today had abandoned him. When his work had been done, he had left it behind. 

 

Steve was no Handler of his but he felt abandoned. Alone. For the first time in his memory, he felt well and truly alone.

 

He got down at a station where only a few passengers got down. He walked out of the station, to the road and then off it. He had no destination in mind. He was just walking. He just kept walking. He had barely noticed it was dark or that he was close to woods.

 

Would it have mattered anyway?

 

He had failed to notice the footsteps following him.

 

 

 

_“You have failed orders again.” The Asset struggles against the harness. “Even your Handler has left you.” It keeps struggling. “You will learn, Солдат, the price of disobeying.” The voice promises terror. “When this is over, you will never betray your any Handler ever again.” The Assrt could hear water level raising, rushing in and snapping electrical wires. There is something else too. It can only sense it. “Never again.”_

 

_The blinding lights comes back and Bucky screams._

 

 

 

When Bucky snapped out of it, he was standing behind bushes, facing the window of a house. He could hear the children laughing, the adults in the house were whispering. He could smell blood on himself. It wasn’t a human’s. Was he-? He checked his hands in horror as they were smeared in blood. He had killed something.

 

 

He ran and ran and ran, his head pounding. He ran till he crashed into something and they went stumbling. Bucky rolled on the ground. Before he could get his bearings, a figure loomed over him and then hit him hard across the head. His head lolled on the ground and then there was blissful silence.

 

 

*

 

 

When Bucky came around, his throat was parched. He was tied onto a rickety wooden chair and he wanted to laugh. It couldn’t be HYDRA if they thought of tying him onto this. It had to be a fool.

 

“Finally up, sleepin’ beauty?” Bucky froze. Shit. He had been so out of it he hadn’t even noticed. He was slacking. “Didn’t take the Winter Soldier to be sloppy but here we are.” The room- Bucky observed was bare, wooden and not very different from his hut. This was a proper cabin, however. “How’s that pretty head?” The voice came closer, behind him. Then he smelled them. Leather. Beer. Cigar.

 

Ah.

 

“Care to show your face?”

 

“Before you decide to try and kill me, kid,” the voice was gruff, “let me tell you, that would be a waste o’ time.” His captor came and stood in front of him. “I’m unkillable. So don’t waste your time on that.” He was as tall as Bucky but heavily packed with muscles. He was wearing a cotton white vest and a pair of jeans, the cigar hanging at the corner of his mouth. His hair stood up in the weirdest fashion. He was wearing boots. 

 

“What do you want from me?”

“Me? I want nothing.” Bucky scoffed. He was behaving more and more human-like these days. “Just stay out of that mind of yours. It would be a shame if I had to hurt you.”

“Right, he said sarcastically. "And, who are you?”

He took a puff and released the smoke. In that split second he reminded Bucky of someone. “So you really don’t remember, huh?” Bucky frowned. “I told you even.” He narrowed his eyes. “James.” That rugged face grinned. “My name too is James.” He dragged another puff and let it out. “At least, that’s what you lot called me before.”

“What do they call you now?” Most of the ropes have loosened. This person was really asking for it.

“Logan.” He stared at Bucky and sighed. “Don’t try any funny business. I don’t intend to hurt you.”

“Oh yeah? What do you want then?” Information. He needed more information. Who was looking for him now?

“That you don’t harm nobody else.” His surprise must have shown.

“Why do you care?”

“It was just a goat this time but it might not be next time.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” 

“I want no innocents harmed. You included.”

“Who will harm me?”

“Me. If you hurt anybody.”

 

 

Bucky pulled up and broke through the binding and lunged at his captor. Even though it had been sudden, the latter had expected it. He slammed Bucky back onto the floor, pinning him down by the weight of his body. Sharp like knives, three long metals tore out from between his knuckles. He pointed them at Bucky’s throat. There was blood at the skin they had broken out of. He stared back at “Logan” in shock.

 

“Who are you?” Bucky whispered.

“James Howlett. Fought alongside you in the war. 107. You called me Lucky James.”

 

“Did they-” Who could experiment on humans to make them like this? “Who did this?”

“Part of me has always been this. I’ve never been human, kid but you didn’t know then people like us existed. Most of you still don’t know.” Bucky sniffed him. It smelled a lot like humans and didn’t. “When I say keep out of that pretty noggin’ of yours, it comes from a place of experience.”

“Why did you follow me?”

“Was in neighbourhood for a friend. Then, saw you.”

“Tonight?”

“You didn’t look well. It usually means trouble.” He shifted up from Bucky’s face. “No funny business,” he warned and redacted _them _. He stood up and Bucky essentially was now free. He reached out with a hand.__

__“What are those?” He grabbed the hand and stood up. He didn’t seem like the enemy. Whether he was an ally he couldn’t tell just yet._ _

__“My bones.”Bucky struggled to not gape. Logan grinned. “They are looking for you. The King’s guard. Logan picked up a jacket lying on the backrest of that wooden chair. That explained the leather smell. His mind wasn’t computing at par. He put the jacket on. “Make sure they find you when you are sure nobody will be harmed.” Bucky felt disoriented._ _

__

__Logan. Lucky James. 107. He had fought alongside Bucky? Few memories flashed in his head. They couldn’t find this James body either. Bucky had been dragged away by Steve and Dugan. He hadn’t wanted this James to be caught to but there had been no time and they had never found his body._ _

__

__Just like him, this James had survived and not as a human._ _

__

__“Okay,” he said. How many people like them are there in the world._ _

__“I’ll take your leave then.” He snuffed out the cigar. “This cabin’s all yours.”_ _

__“Where are y-”_ _

__“When you return to your world of the living, I might come stop by. Till then.” Bucky could hear loud dogs bark and people shouting. There was a rescue team. Looking for him. “Take it from someone,” Logan said standing near the window, “from who has been there. This life will be difficult and every day will be a struggle.” He looked at Bucky. “But if you keep trying, it almost becomes worth it.” Then he jumped through the window._ _

__

__Dogs and all the other animals in a Wakandan rescue team, their voices increased._ _

__

__He collapsed on his knees and sank onto the wooden floor._ _

__

__It was like the strings holding him up were no longer tethered._ _

__

__Bucky fell on his back. His vision swirled. The ceiling swirled and then he was unconscious._ _

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__***_ _

__

__

__When he became conscious, he was in a hospital ward. King T’Challa visited him soon after. They seemed worried. Princess Shuri too. They were nice people. They hadn’t found Logan and Bucky feigned memory loss. He was going to track down that person in his own time._ _

__

__Nakia visited him in the ward two days later. He asked her for a request. “I want to stand Trial for my actions.”_ _

__

__

__Of course, his request hadn’t been accepted courtesy of Avengers. So what Bucky had done next was wait till the King was away from the country and the eyes on him had decreased and then he had sneaked himself into one of the jets flying to North America. He made himself a stowaway and let himself be seen when he was on the American soil. He was, immediately, arrested and taken in. Secretary Ross looked particularly baffled that Bucky had, practically, handed himself over._ _

__

__Now that he was no longer seeking asylum in Wakanda and had come under the jurisdiction of US, the process for his trial began and because Bucky insisted on it, it only helps speed up matters._ _

__

__His trial ran for more than a year._ _

__

__Steve tried to meet him in his cell holding during that time but Bucky usually turned him away except for the night before his final day in court._ _

__

__“Why, Buck?”_ _

__

__“Someone has to take responsibility for all the horror that HYDRA left behind.”_ _

__“But that wasn’t you!” Steve had been furious._ _

__“Might as well as have been me.”_ _

__“Buck-,” he had sounded frustrated, they had been talking across the glass, through the phones on either side. Bucky had always been a prisoner. Of life, of different people. “It feels like a punishment.”_ _

__“Maybe it is.”_ _

__“Why?” His voice broke. Steve looked up, the whites of his eyes red. “Why are you doing this, Buck? Why are you doing this to me?”_ _

__“This should have happened sooner.”_ _

__Bucky hung the mouthpiece back and signaled to be taken back to his cell._ _

__

__

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__

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__*_ _

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__

__

__Bucky had been so sure he was going to be given Death or something harrowing, Nothing would compare to HYDRA but something that was kin to the punishment he deserved. But, no. He should have paid better attention._ _

__

__He had been sitting in the cubicle watching his trial but not really hearing anything. The courtroom buzzed half hour after it began and he didn’t notice the cause till the very reason stepped into the Witness Box. It was Tony Stark looking years younger than he had last seen him, a flippant smile. Howard’s son, to Bucky’s shock, spoke in favour of him. To everyone’s surprise, judging by the entire court’s reaction. It had come out in the trial, of course, that he had assassinated the Starks. He watched in confusion and befuddlement as Stark Junior spoke. Spoke on his behalf and Bucky felt dizzy._ _

__

__By the time the trial ended, Bucky was banned from leaving the country. He would be on house arrest, only to remain in the Avenger’s Compound under tracking and supervision of his Parole Officer Everett K. Ross and to serve with the Avengers for the next two decades on any mission the Council deemed needed his skills set. If he was found violating the laws, he was to be immediately arrested with unpardonable bail._ _

__

__

__Bucky was released from his cell and into Avengers’ Compound two days after the trial set him free, as a former decorated soldier, a prisoner of war. He had to attend sessions with a shrink who will be appointed for him almost every day in the week for the first six months. Other than that, he was essentially, a free man._ _

__

__Was he though? Maybe the Trail, the people of his country deciding he was innocent enough was going to be his punishment because he hadn’t deserved it. Guilt would be his ultimate punishment. Knowing he got to be free when he hadn’t deserved it._ _

__

__

__

__Three days after the trial, one day after he moved into the compound, Steve had passed away. He had passed away in his sleep. Sam had informed him that his death had been painless._ _

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__

__

__They organised the funeral within the premise of the compound, Bucky had been called by Steve’s lawyer who had read out his will to all the people present there. Sam got the shield, Maria Stark Foundation got shares to start funds for Prisoners of War, for their mental health beings, share to start school for differently-abled and the remaining money to a Charles Xavier. Bucky didn’t know who that had been and didn’t care. Steve’s lawyer handed him the keys to the cabin, a white envelope, and some notepads._ _

__

__Bucky knew what those were. He had taken his share and left._ _

__

__He had watched the funeral from far, the letter unopened and crumpling in his fist. Then they had called Sam onto the stage, then he met Stark on the way and then he had run and he hadn’t realised he had been out of his designated premise when he had jumped over the fence. The tracker on his ankle had activated and had zapped him. He had fallen into the water not expecting it._ _

__

__

__

__*_ _

__

__He feels the person lightly slapping his face- slapping?- before he hears the voice. “Barnes? Barnes!” The voice sounds worried, calling his name out in urgency._ _

__

__

__Bucky has been pulled up and dragged onto the ground. He coughs and spits the water out and pushes himself off the ground a bit. It had been too fast it seems because Stark wasn’t fast in pulling back and is kind of still sitting on him. “You okay?”_ _

__“Yeah,” he coughs and spits out more water. He visibly flinches as again the electric current zaps through him._ _

__“Oh.” Stark scrambles back and then with one tug, yanks it off Bucky’s ankle and throws it over the fence, back into the premise. “They are going to come looking for you. It’s best to get back in.”_ _

__

__This close, his eyes are the brownest Bucky has seen on anyone for a while and he shivers. Or, maybe he is shaking, It has been some time since he was last put through this sort of a thing. His body is very easily getting used to lack of any degree of torture. It is getting … weaker._ _

__

__Stark stands up, looks over the fence and then suddenly, manhandles Bucky up, picks him up and throws him over the fence. Bucky turns and lies on the ground on his back and wonders in confusion. It must be the technology, not Stark’s natural strength. He puts an arm around himself to make the tremor less pronounced. Stark is standing several feet away, his eyes constantly looking out for something. Then he hears them and are in front of them._ _

__

__Ross, Colonel Rhodes, and Wilson._ _

__

__Bucky tries to stand up and if he weren’t him, he wouldn’t have been able to manage that._ _

__

__“What happened?” Ross asked. His eyes were squinted in suspicion._ _

__“We had an argument and I ditched him into the river.” Stark lies confidently, nonchalantly like he physically harmed people all the time. He shrugged._ _

__“Did you?” (Colonel Rhodes mouths ‘what the fuck, Tones?’) “And, you took him back out too?”_ _

__Bucky manages to finally stand straight and grunts. “He did.”_ _

__Ross gives them both a doubtful look but doesn’t question further. “Go to the infirmary and get checked up.” Bucky nods. “I’ll meet you later.” He turns to Rhodes who gives Tony a sharp look and then the Colonel flies them out of there._ _

__

__Now it is just Bucky, Stark, and Sam._ _

__“Buck-”_ _

__“It is fine.” Bucky shuffles and grits his teeth. He hates appearing weak even if his body might be actually getting weak. “I’m fine.”_ _

__“We-” Sam begins._ _

__

__Stark huffs, comes stalking, his skin, clothes, face covering up in small particles till it is just Iron man in front of him. “You are not fine.” He wraps a metal-covered arm around Bucky and then, they are shooting up through the air._ _

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__*_ _

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__Bucky opens the envelope only when he is in the cabin, in the middle of the night. He has gone several times through the_ _

__Notepads already. They are filled with Bucky’s sketches. Sometimes there is Steve himself in them too. A few of them are drawn from his favourite memories. Some of the drawings have little notes scratched at the side- like when this happened, why it is important. His memories from before of being Captain America look happier than the ones that come after. As if that night at the Expo all those many years back had been _the_ point in life that had set them on different lines. Always close but never together. Like parallel lines, their lives never intersected anymore but kept being an endless stretch of line. Maybe that was when they had, inadvertently, hurled themselves towards their own end of lines which didn’t include each other. When his life had begun to fall apart because of Azzano, he had held onto Steve, looking after his needs, however, he could protect him. There was only so much his best friend had needed anymore from him since becoming Captain America. All Bucky could give him, he understood, was the feeling that Bucky was all right and was going to be next to him._ _

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__Bucky would have given up his life than break that promise. Then, he had. That promise didn’t cost him his life as much as his soul. His soul is still burning from it._ _

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__Steve and Bucky were inseparable in childhood and growing up, life had torn them apart._ _

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__Agent Hill had surmised it correctly. “It is so complex and tragic. They have a devotion to one another that is undermined and devastated by fate.”* She had been talking to Barton. They had been at the Cemetery on the Avengers’ Compound where Captain America had been buried alongside all the brave souls who had lost their lives in Battle of Resurrection as they were calling it now. Bucky had fled before they could discover him there._ _

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__The paper inside the envelope is equally white with a faint scent that Bucky had smelled on Steve in Wakanda. His eyes fill with tears as he reads. He slumps against the wall, drawing his legs up. He tucks his head between his knees and cries._ _

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_You have always given me so much Buck. Family, friends, protection, happiness. I always struggled to return it to you. I could have done everything and still, it wouldn’t have been enough. Even now you hide away your sadness because of me. I always wish there had been another way, another life where we could have been happy together._ _Where we could have been together._ _Now when I look back, I think, you chased all those dames to protect us, you came back to me for me. I had always thought it wasn’t possible. But most importantly, you deserved better. Better than someone like me. As years passed, I couldn’t dare to think it could ever be possible so I let the thought go. Then I lost you. __When I got you back, helping you to get better was my only priority. Each time I saw you, I saw my failure- my failure as a friend, my failure to be what you had deserved. And, in that moment, I realised I deserved you even lesser._ __

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_When I went back in time, I searched for you, for years but I couldn’t find you._

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_Thinking I had done the right thing, now I understand I have failed you yet again._ _I cannot hope to have your forgiveness for failing you but know this, even if Peggy was someone I needed, you, Buck, will always be the person Stevie had wanted._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Actually quoted from the Russo brothers on Stucky
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read this fic, left Kudos and comments. This fic ended up being something _very_ different from what I had intended it to be.
> 
> This fic was also supposed to be followed by two different sequels as alternate endings - a) with Winteriron and b) with 2012!Steve coming into the future and hence, Stucky. I don't think I will be going for Option B as I have several other incomplete fics to finish. Please let me know if you would like me to post the Winteriron sequel.

**Author's Note:**

> *Ready to comply, Soldier?
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>  
> 
> This fic was inspired by this Tumblr post: https://theloveintheireyes.tumblr.com/post/184931658880/there-it-is-that-voice-in-my-head-telling
> 
> Thank you!
> 
>  
> 
> Do let me know your thoughts in the comment down below! The next chapter is going to be long!


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